If you turn into the Broad Street car park from Orange Street, Halifax, the sign is high up on the building to the right – a building that was, until January 1998, the Star Hotel, which is in the process of being demolished.

Most of the old structures in this part of Halifax were flattened in the 1960s, though a few new ones were erected, but the old Star survived as a pub for another 30 years.

For many years it belonged to the local brewers Richard Whitaker and Sons, though latterly it was a free house, and the last landlady was Margaret Dillon, originally from Mirfield.

The pub was popular with Campaign for Real Ale members, and hosted several pool teams. Regulars were understandably upset when the pub was sold to Trinity Investments and had to close. One declared it was "the friendliest pub in Halifax".

The top floor of the building housed the Halifax Star Boxing Club, founded by Bob "the Tiger" Ennis in the 1940s. Among those who trained there was noted local boxer and author Phil McGrath. The club later moved to the Workout Warehouse in Square Road.

It is clear that what became the Star was earlier simply a beerhouse, presumably in older premises. At the time of the 1851 census, a John Appleyard, aged 69, was living with his wife Ann and family, his occupation being a beer seller. And so the site of the Star probably had a tradition of beer drinking which lasted for nearly 160 years.

From the anonymous Halifax Itinerary of around 1875 comes the following description of the area:

"In Weymouth Street is Mr Pulman's large iron warehouse, wholesale grocer, two large potato fruit etc warehouse(s], one Roman Catholic preaching and service room, one wool warehouse, one wood carver's works, one leather and boot tops warehouse, a joiner's shop, a coal yard and an old broker's shop, chiefly dealing in old iron. Every building in this street is new."

Abram Pulman's business is still in existence today, at Sowerby Bridge; and here we have reference to another temporary Roman Catholic chapel, perhaps a forerunner of that which has recently been mentioned in Nostal-gia as being behind the Talbot Inn, Woolshops.

From another page of the Itinerary comes this extract: "In Weymouth Street (is] a bacon shop, a flour and corn shop and eating house, a toy and small artists and a glass shop. A large expense was incurred in making the cellars two deep in the hard dry rock."

It would be interesting to know if any trace of the cellars "in the hard dry rock" comes to light when excavations are made for the foundations of the proposed Broad Street complex. Before long this whole area will have changed beyond recognition.

In the 1960s and '70s, at the corner of Orange Street and Weymouth Street was a small garage with one petrol pump. This business operated under the name of J. W. Bramley, Garage and Radio Service in the 1930s and later.



All change: this is the site of the long-awaited Broad Street development in Halifax, which, after much revision, is to contain shops, restaurants, bowl, multi-screen cinema, Calderdale Council offices, central library and 445-space car park.
Orange Street runs across the picture, with North Parade cross-ing it on the left of the photo. The Star pub, now being demolished for the new development, and the long-gone Bramley's garage are on opposite corners of Weymouth Street.
Almost every building in the photo long since disappeared, including the twin cooling towers, nick-named Salt and Pepper, which were demolished in 1974.
Salem Methodist Church, with the spirelet, on the very left of the photo, was demolished in 1970 to make way for Halifax's new inner relief Road, Aachen Way, the congregation moving to a new church in Richmond Street.
But the building behind, which contained the showrooms of worsted manufacturer James Akroyd and Son, remains between Akroyd Place and Northgate.
The modern offices of the Timeform horse racing publishing company are visible at the far end of Weymouth Street and at the top left of the picture, off New Bank, is Garden Street Mill, the second oldest mill in Halifax, which survived a series of fires in the 1990s and was converted into flats in 2003.

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